Devil's claw root and other natural remedies for arthritis - Rachel Carston

What is devil's Claw?

Devil's Claw is the common name for HARPAGOPHYTUM PROCUMBENS, a plant found in the Kalahari Desert and Namibian Steppes of Africa. The shape of the thorny, claw-like seedpods (as pictured on the cover) gives the plant its name. The medicinal properties of devil's claw are derived from the tubers which store water during the 9-10 months of drought each year.

The use of devil's claw root as an anti-arthritic and general detoxifying remedy became a part of the folk medicine of the native Africans of Namibia ages ago. The Western world did not know of its marvellous healing properties, though, until the middle of this century. This book compiles both the African and the European knowledge and research of this herb.

Dr. J.A. Boucher, President of the Canadian Naturopathic Association, comments in the foreword: "In my practice I had seen what devil's claw root could clinically accomplish in an adjunctive way for the arthritic patient. Like Dr. Siegmund Schmidt of Bad Rothenfield, West Germany, I had labelled it 'valuable support' to a rehabilitation programme."

Moreover he states: "We must teach people to stop violating natural laws - which is what made them sick in the first place - and, instead, obey all the laws of nature. Further, if and when medicaments are prescribed, they should be entirely natural and physiological."

Rachel Carston quotes Paracelsus: "Nature has not given any disease for which it has not also provided a remedy." To which Dr. Boucher adds another quote, taken from the writing of the "Father of Modern Medicine," Hippocrates: "Let your foods be your medicine and your medicine be your foods." How true is this in the case of devil's claw root!